The winch of my invention results from my objective of providing an improved design of winch. The advantages of the specific embodiment described below are set out at the end of its description.
In the description that follows, the term "cable" will be used to denote all types of ropes, lines, cables and the like which may be hauled in by a winch. Similarly the term "ratchet" will be used to denote any one-way drive mechanism, whether it includes one pawl only or more usually several pawls or indeed if it is a pawl-less drive such as a one-way roller bearing.